[ JEFF KOONS ] People think that i have a large factory that just knocks out work.
If you want to make public works in different mediums, you have
to have support.
I do have a lot of people that work with me, but we make very
few paintings a year, because it takes a long time to make each one.
I learned at a very young age
how to take care of myself, and i've always enjoyed providing.
So the studio's really an extension of that.
It's a sense of community.
From the time i was a child, i was self-reliant.
I would go door-to-door, sell gift wrapping paper, candies, chocolates,
and I always enjoyed
that I never knew who would open that door.
But it's the same thing that's happening now as an artist today,
wanting this communication, this interaction.
It wasn't till I got to art school
that i really understood how art can connect you through human history
and the type of reservoir that it could be.
If I look at all the works
that i've done over the years,
i can see that i continue with certain themes.
I like flowers. I like certain sensual images.
There's certain things that I like to work with, 'cause it's
really the same information, how you look at life and spiritual aspects.
A lot of things continue to come into play.
Objects are metaphors for people.
It always turns out to be about others.
It's not about accepting that object, high-low culture.
It's about the acceptance of others.
- You got everything, Chris? - Yeah.
- I don't know if these will work with the fins.
- Yeah, these braces weren't there when we flipped it.
- We'll take 'em out them. - Yeah.
- Screwdriver.
[high-pitched whining]
- We're gonna maybe leave this one in for the time being.
- Yeah, I wasn't actually gonna take it out.
I did that one, and I missed it.
- 'Cause they'll have enough room. - Mhm.
- Yeah, this one, I'm just gonna leave it.
- Jeff's images are usually made up of many different sources.
He'll compose these on the computer and spend a fair amount
It's our job to reproduce as close as possible to this reference,
and then we work with him in the painting process.
We trace the drawing on a larger scale.
We have to mix color to his liking.
Everything is done through maps.
For example, we have a map for the hand.
We have 141 colors just for the fist on that painting.
It's always an ongoing process to try to get it as close to the
reference as possible.
So, for example, if you looked in here, we have number 21.
We would have somebody mix actual color that would match
that specific area on the painting.
We mix it on the table over there.
We basically make a swatch.
Usually three or four people have to look at the color and agree if it matches or not, and
then we go through and tube these paints
and have boxes full of all the paints that we need.
Flesh is a hard one. Jeff's very particular on the flesh,
so once we find someone that we like that does it the
way we want, it's very hard to keep 'em around, doing it good.
We have people that paint inflatables really well.
People specialize in certain things.
The way we paint here is very particular.
It's very smooth. So we have to watch out that
people aren't painting too thick.
It's kind of an irreversible thing.
You can't really fix that.
But generally speaking, it's three people on a painting at all times, and it's probably six
to eight months for a painting, sometimes longer.
Ideas change, techniques change,
so it's always evolving into different things.
I've seen Jeff work on some of the paintings years ago.
I haven't seen him work so much now.
The painting process i see him working is on the computer.
He'll keep composing the image until he's happy with it.
That's primarily where i see most of his time spent.
But he's more hands-on in coming in daily and giving us guidance
on what he wants and how to
execute it to make it look like what he wants it to look like.
[ JEFF KOONS ] I think the way art comes into the world is through
a metaphysical process.
If you try to create art, it's a decorative process.
You're just wasting time, spinning gears until you get so
bored with yourself that you just stop the process and say,
"Okay, what do i really want to do?
What am i interested in?" and you focus on it, and before
you know it, you're in that metaphysical place.
"Bear and Policeman" that's probably one of my kind of darker works,
I worked with wood because I wanted to work
with a material that had a spiritual side,
that's a living material.
It keeps moving. The church has used it for
a very kind of spiritual aspect to its nature.
"Bear and Policeman" is an image of a bear that's really kind of
outgrown the symbol of authority, and it's larger than
the bobby, the policeman bobby that's there.
And it's ready to blow the bobby's whistle.
There is kind of a sense of sexual humiliation there through
overpowering the bobby, and that piece, for me, is really
speaking about that, you know, art should be something really powerful.
Artists should embrace all the tools of art to communicate as
strongly as possible,
as clearly as possible with as much a virile quality.
But at the same time, there's a morality that comes
along with that, and that's just the respect of other people,
that their rights are equal to yours.
And so, "Bear and Policeman" was always like art having that
power but being misused and going out of control.
And it always reminded me, like, of Hitler.
So i was trying to communicate,
again, artists should embrace all the powers of art, but
there's a moral responsibility that comes with it.
"Ushering in Banality" is also from the "Banality" series.
It's also made out of wood.
I always felt that it was a little autobiographical.
The young boy in the back pushing the pig, I always
thought of as myself pushing in this belief of really trying to
make work that would communicate to people that their own
cultural history to that moment was perfect, absolutely perfect.
Cultural history, personal history, everything is perfect,
and that that would give them a foundation to move forward in life.
You know, art can be something which can really disempower
people and can make them feel completely inferior—and some
people can get a sense of power from that—or it can be
a vehicle which can empower people.
And i also get a sense of power from empowering.
There are theatrical aspects taking place in Versailles.
My artworks want to show themselves.
The artworks are extroverted. The major salons are about
public interaction.
It's for the public to be there.
I had to position myself in a certain way even to be accepted within that situation
of Louis XIV, just like any artist of the court would have
to present themself in a certain way.
The way I did that, I showed my self-portrait bust, and I put
the bust on top of a plinth that was designed by Bernini, so it
was quite high.
It was probably about 11 feet up in the air.
And I remember when I made this suggestion, some of the
assistants at Versailles started to giggle.
They thought, "How could he do that?
How could he, you know, put himself on such a position like
that on a Bernini base?"
But i realized that that was kind of necessary, and that was
across from the portrait of Louis XIV by Rigaud, and I think
it worked, and I think Louis XIV appreciated it.
When I'm at Versailles, it never really seems to be about excess,
because it seems to be about detail and enjoying the detail.
I really enjoyed the lobster hanging—I think it was in the
Salon de Mars.
If you look at the lobster, it's a little bit like a performer,
like an acrobat, kind of broad arms, and the tentacles are like
a mustache.
But if you look closely, the graphics on the lobster are like
somebody being burned at the stake.
So you also have this sense that if you're in the public eye long
enough, that's an inevitable fate.
To be able to have an exhibition at Versailles,
it's really a special opportunity.
I spent about five weeks of the summer being in the gardens and
going through the palace, and then I planted “Split-Rocker."
There are 90,000 flowers, and I worked with a team of gardeners
from Versailles.
And this was the first time that I ever planted a floral piece
completely mathematically.
It's based on a pattern of five plants.
I have different light colors and dark colors and mid colors.
But it's all done in mathematical patterns,
and I never did that before.
I thought that was really appropriate for Versailles.
[ speaking French ]
[ JEFF KOONS ] One of the things that I came
to realize in this last year-- I had several major exhibitions.
I had a show at Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
I had the show on the roof of The Metropolitan in New York,
exhibition at Versailles,
and then also at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
I had a chance to see different bodies of work inter-reacting
with each other.
The images can change a lot. The reason for making something can change.
Some things can be more cerebral.
Other ones can be more physical. But what doesn't change is that
reason for making them,
that desire to be in that moment of that time when you want to
make something, just diving in, that kind of sense of
abandonment of kind of any doubt and just going for it.
And that's really what's important to me as the viewer in this case.
I know that other viewers can look at it, and they can feel
something, but I hope that the main charge that they're getting
is that sense of commitment of moving forward on something,
that commitment of gesture.
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